Manhunt
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Backstory for 'A World for Dreams'. In the Mirror Universe, there's a reward offered for the capture alive of a man who's wanted by someone very important. Someone who has the authority to send out a Pack of the Dispossessed in pursuit... PLEASE NOTE, this story features violence and non-con. If these offend you, please do not read it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.**

* * *

'_The prisoner is to be secured unharmed at all costs. Repeat: at ALL costs. You are authorized to use all necessary force. Failure to comply is not an option.'_

The order dins through the headsets, over and over again, as we climb aboard the shuttle to be taken down to the surface.

I don't think I've ever been so excited. I glance aside at my fellow MACOs and see my anticipation mirrored on every face.

The Empire has been after this guy for years. Nobody knows what he's done, but it must have been something really bad. They want him, and they want him _alive_. We know the orders are straight from the top.

The reward for success would be more money than I've ever seen in a lifetime. The reward for failure would be ... well, the captain who took the briefing just said brusquely that we'd better not even think about it if we ever want to sleep again.

"Bet you the bastard tries to off himself," mutters Delaney beside me as we settle down on the benches.

"He'd better not fuckin' try." I hoist my phase rifle and think about what I could do with all that money. Even with a share of it.

Sergeant d'Argentine comes in last, and spreads a hard glance around us. "The people who matter know we're closing in," he says. "The word just came down. Whoever makes the catch gets to hand the prisoner over _in person_."

Eyes go round with awe. Surreptitiously, a few tongues swipe across teeth. I've got real good hearing, so I catch Delaney's soft, eager whine through her locked jaws.

I can't explain how good it feels when a whole team of the Dispossessed get sent on a mission together. There's a freedom, a ... a sense of _belonging._ We don't have to act, we don't have to hide. We interact naturally, joyously.

The orders allow this, even encourage it. Monitors are switched off during our relaxation periods, a privilege no other unit gets. We play-fight, we wrestle and tumble and have the rough fun of any wolf pack. If the females allow it, we mate them, horny and unselfconscious. D'Argentine is the alpha, so he gets the most, but a few nights ago Delaney let me at her and it felt so damned good...

Sometimes, if a lower-ranking male is submissive and indicates willingness, the other males couple with him. I haven't done that yet, but I've watched it and been tempted. One of the days, I will.

Remembered horniness floods my system with more adrenaline. I want to _hunt_. I want to _kill_.

_No killing! _My top lip wrinkles with reluctant acceptance. That's the order, and there must be obedience. That is _Pack_.

Still, there's going to be hunting, and that's always good.

He's run for a long time.

Finally, though, he's run out of luck. His escape vehicle is fast, but it's old, and he's just a millisecond too slow getting it off the windswept, crumbling runway. A strafing pass by one of the attack drones takes out one of its turbo-motors just as it powers up for launch, and next minute the little arrow-shaped ship's slewing sideways as the motor's power dies and what should have been a smooth acceleration turns into a vicious, irretrievable spin.

A targeted blast of concentrated electromagnetic radiation fries his computers as soon as the craft shudders to a halt, preventing any thought of the pilot activating an auto-destruct. It'll even have taken out his phase pistol if he's carrying one. The only thing it wouldn't touch would be an old-fashioned projectile weapon, but the drones' scans suggest there isn't one on board.

It probably didn't do him a whole lot of good either, on a cellular level, but we've medics standing by to treat any accidental damage. Judging by the state-of-the-art facilities on the _Sirius_, which is waiting in orbit to collect him when he's taken, they sure as hell don't mean him to be in anything less than A1 condition when he's finally handed over.

They've hunted him here, across half a damned sector, system by system. On the very few occasions when fear didn't work fast enough, bribery did. Money talks, in the Empire.

And this is where he's finally been run to ground, in this half-ruined, rundown station on a barren plain under the red light of a dying sun. There's not even much atmosphere left, if there was ever much to begin with; a couple of hundred meters up from ground level and you'd be gasping for oxygen. Even on the station, walking fast is an effort in the thin air. We have oxygen tanks strapped to our backs, so that we've masks to use if we need to.

The personnel manning the drones didn't dare open deterrent fire as he left the wrecked craft – too much danger of an accidental hit. The cameras watch him run for the buildings, and the thermal scanners track him inside. We watch the feeds hungrily as the shuttle dips towards the runway. It's almost too easy; where's the fun if we know exactly where the prey's hiding?

"_Weapons on stun,_" growls d'Argentine. Responding to the note in his voice, Delaney throws her head up and licks her mouth excitedly. The other wolves inhale audibly, just like I do, smelling her condition: she wants to mate. The proximity of prey thrills all of us, the women most of all.

Discipline prevents a free-for-all; there'd almost certainly be fighting. Later, there'll be sex. Because there's been no kill, there'll be lots of sex. Women will be provided, more than enough to go around.

Lust heats my stomach. _Hunt. Kill. Mate_.

..._Not kill. _I'm not the only one who moans at that realization. Some of the women will die. Maybe all of them.

They are _not-Pack. _They're slaves. They're dispensable.

Then, suddenly, just as the slight jolt of the craft around us tells us that we've landed on the tarmac, the winking green light vanishes off the tracker screen.

There's instant uproar. The first cry, of frustration with technology, merges into a rising howl of joyous realization. The prey's gone to ground – at a guess, there are tunnels under the station.

We _will_ have a hunt!

D'Argentine glares around at us. His eyes are wild; we know that he feels exactly what we feel, but he's our alpha, he's in command, and he doesn't want any of us to be lost completely in the black joy of the chase and capture. His mouth works, and we grin ferally at his attempt to speak without snarling.

"No..." he sucks in air, and fights to get the word out, "..._kill!"_

We don't need words. We keen and cry and yammer, as the excitement moves us, but our rising yelps of eagerness are cut short as the lights on the exit door panel turn from red to green, indicating that the pack is about to be released. The faint hum of the door's servomotors is perfectly audible in the sudden tense and absolute silence.

Hot, dry, thin air flows in as the ramp extends and settles.

Our boot-soles are made of a special, hugely costly material that acts as the softest of cushions beneath us. It makes our footfalls practically silent, even when we're running. Our external uniforms are of black and gray silk, which makes no sound louder than a whisper as its surfaces rub together. Every moving part of our weapons is oiled, as are the blades of our knives so that they'll clear the scabbard with the softest and smoothest of hisses.

There's an open jar by the side of the hatch. As each hunter sets foot on the ramp, he or she dabs a thumb into it and quickly dabs our Pack Mark on the left cheek: the black paw-print for the wolves that we are. As we leave the ship, the front view-screens are blacked out. The pilots don't watch us leave, and they won't watch us come back. Nobody sees the Dispossessed who doesn't have to.

D'Argentine gestures silently. The sullen light of the sinking sun turns us into stealthily hurrying figures the color of drying blood.

There's more than one entrance to what probably used to be the terminal building. Obedient to d'Argentine's flicking fingers, we split up to cover each of them.

The doors probably opened and closed on automatic, but the motors must have seized years ago; the runners are caked solid with dust and debris, the dingy corridors beyond lit only by the occasional flickering glare of a malfunctioning information panel that tells anyone who's interested that the station is temporarily closed for repairs. More blown dust coats the floors underfoot and every available horizontal surface. The only noise comes from the circuits of a vending machine in a dark corner, where tiny bright flashes and snapping sounds tell of a current trying to arc across a broken cable. There are still items of merchandise inside, but the glass casing is broken and at a guess anything edible would have been stolen from it long ago.

We pass along the corridors like shadows. We have hand-scanners which we can activate if needed, but for us they're a last resort. Perhaps that's one of the things that makes us so terrible to _not-Pack. _They don't know – they don't _understand…_

Dupont's passing a door when she suddenly freezes. The tilt of her head says she _hears. _A subtlety of body language says it's not _him_, but there's something – something alive, something to _hunt…_

Four shadows move to the door, and slip inside while I and others keep watch. There's a little pause, then a sudden rush and a tiny shrill shriek as something dies. Harsh breathing and the hush of silk on silk signals the small, savage struggle for possession, then someone wins. The shadows slip out of the door again, half-seen smiles on their faces. Dupont gulps down the last remnant of a tail.

My impatient signal conveys the need to make up wasted time. D'Argentine will be moving in from the next entrance, Raj from the rear. Both of them are further away from where the signal was lost, or I wouldn't have spared us even this brief diversion. Even now, we should be considerably nearer to where _he _found what he hoped would be his salvation.

A decrepit map of the station hanging on one wall gives us valuable information. It tallies with the thermal scanner's story, and as we speed almost noiselessly up the corridor that long ago led to Baggage Reclaim – that's a good joke! – it's not long before we come across the access door to the maintenance passageways. It's locked, of course, but _he_'d never have gotten this far if he'd been the sort to be stopped by a standard lock. Del Rey could open it manually in less than two minutes if time wasn't an issue, but instead he whips out an instrument that has two steel jaws at one end that resemble those of a stag beetle. He closes these on the body of the lock and there's a brief flash before the components of the mechanism literally fall apart. It was strongly built, and I'd guess that even now it'd have stood up to being hit with a mallet; I wouldn't like to guess what kind of damage that gizmo could do to living tissue.

We ease the door open slowly, all of us inhaling carefully of the first wisps of stale air that eddy out. We don't have anything like the nasal capability of real canines, but most of us have undergone highly specific surgery to intensify the capability we were born with. We can smell far more than the average human can, and from the swirl of slightly unpleasant odors that comes from the passage I know that there's no-one waiting in ambush. What I _can_ smell is the faint, acrid, thrilling trace of fear-sweat.

Others smell it too. There's a hungry stir. I growl low in my throat, reinforcing my authority, reinforcing the orders. _No kill._

One by one we slip into the passageway, crouching low, finding any bar of deeper shadow that will help us disappear. The only lighting in here is the emergency illumination that lies in a cable at the foot of the left-hand wall, and even that's so crusted over that what should be a steady green glow is only just enough to show us the passage curving away into the depths of the station, with here and there gaps of deeper blackness to show where ladders lead up or down to other levels. The rat whom we pursue has found a refuge that offers ample hiding places; we will _hunt. _We will find them _all_.

We will _hunt. _We will _find. _We will _chase. _We will _corner. _We will–

Later, we will _kill. _We will _eat._

Like ghosts, we flit along the passageway. At each side-access we pause, and listen, and smell. Murderous shadows slip away to become part of the darkness.

Joyously I imagine what it must be like to be _him._ Alone, in the darkness, with the end in sight. Fear metallic in my mouth; so afraid that I have bitten my own tongue. Maybe I have some kind of a weapon – a metal bar, perhaps – the cold weight of it is slippery in my palm. My belly is hollow with terror, my ears on the stretch for the first whisper of sound that says _they have found me._

_Death is coming._

In its time, it was a large station. There are many passageways. In one we meet the first of Raj's team, and exchange hungry, hostile glances. Everyone wants to be the one who claims the kill.

–_No kill–_

_Later…_

…and sex…

We separate again, flowing like a plague wind.

He's run fast and far. But he can't out-run the Dispossessed, and as I go to dart past what looks like an empty washroom I catch the sudden overwhelming stench of sweat-wet flesh.

He must have moved, or something gave way – we'd have picked that up far sooner if he'd been in the open. As it is, he's half wedged behind a broken piece of paneling, almost as if he's tried to dig his way into the rubble-packed earth behind it; maybe he managed to get just so far in and then it all went wrong, just at the worst moment – for him, but certainly not for us.

As I leap across the room, almost howling with delight, he realizes the game's up. He _has _a weapon – a piece of what looks like old piping, and as he half-falls out of his failed refuge he swings it wildly at me with the strength of utter desperation.

If he was good, he'd be dangerous. As it is, he's what I'd describe as a mildly talented amateur. I dive under the swing and take him around the waist, hurling him backwards to get the air thumped out of his lungs as he hits the wall. Half a dozen other shadows follow me in, swarming over him, grabbing, snarling, their teeth grazing across his flesh as they fight down the urge to bite and tear. Someone yelps as the piping connects, and then screams as in the frenzy she's identified as _prey_ and attacked in good earnest. I don't know if she dies, and I don't care – my arms are around _him_, my jaws locked on the angle of his throat, and in the midst of the melee of squealing and pawing and biting I kick and snarl and elbow away the other contenders: my prize, my kill, _mine!_

_MINE!_


	2. Chapter 2

The _Sirius._

I've never been aboard one of the Empire's great warships. The sheer size of it intimidates me as the shuttle turns onto the approach vector we've been sent.

I can't help looking at the massive shapes of the cannons that bristle from every side. Two of them track us as we approach. For all that we're expected, no battleship commander ever takes chances.

The pilot takes the utmost care to dock as lightly as a landing butterfly. Imperial ships are valuable, and the punishment for damaging one is severe.

There's a pause, while security codes are exchanged. There will be MACOs behind the docking hatch, and if it's opened before the security clearances are finished they'll open fire at once, killing everyone on board.

Fortunately for us, there's no problem.

D'Argentine has come with me, as my commanding officer. His uniform is cleaner and smarter than I've ever seen it, his face pale. He told me last night that if I didn't do him credit he'd use my bowels for bunting, and he meant it.

The MACOs lower their weapons, but don't holster them. They form an open square around us, and we're marched off to a turbo-lift. We get in, and the small space means we're wedged tight. I breathe shallowly and try not to acknowledge panic.

I don't know how many floors we go up before the doors open again. The corridors are pristine. We turn smartly to the left, march perhaps fifty meters, and then stop in front of a double door. Four more MACOs are on guard here, and they run scanners over both of us, from the tops of our heads to the bottom of our soles. I have no doubt at all that if either of us were found to be wearing or carrying a single damn thing that wasn't regulation issue, both of us would die.

Again fortunately for us, neither of us is.

"Enter and wait," raps one of the guards. "You will not speak until you are spoken to."

The doors hiss open. There's a buzzing in my ears as I step smartly forward, d'Argentine one pace behind and to my right.

We're in what's obviously a guest suite. It's superbly fitted out, everything black and white and dazzling chrome; everything's so neat and tidy it makes your teeth ache just looking at it.

It's empty. Well, except for the gurney that's placed a couple of meters in from the doorway, and even the blanket lying across the guy on it is immaculately clean and perfectly placed. Its soft white surface outlines where the straps are holding him absolutely immobile.

I've no idea why he's so valuable. He doesn't look like anything much: a middle-age guy, graying fair hair, running a bit to seed. Looks a bit like a college professor or something. He's conscious, but he doesn't look aside or speak. He just lies there, staring at the ceiling, and now and again he swallows. He's been cleaned up and made presentable, but when we snap to a halt just short of him I can smell fear-sweat again.

There's a medical PADD lying on his chest. A quick glance down shows me the words IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

I don't know his name. I don't care. He's my ticket to wealth and fortune.

We wait a few minutes. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves. We don't know where they are, but there will be cameras trained on us. We were ordered to wait, so we wait.

The hiss of the door opposite opening almost startles me into stepping backwards. D'Argentine draws in a breath that sounds loud.

The guy who enters isn't tall. He's not even spectacularly built, though he's definitely toned. He's been in the shower – his dark hair's wet, and I catch a waft of spicy-scented shower gel. He's wearing a black silk dressing-gown belted at the waist and walks barefoot, prowling on the polished bare boards without a sound.

He stops directly opposite us, on the other side of the gurney. From the moment he walked in his wide gray gaze has been fixed on it, and not a muscle in his narrow, chiseled face moves as he takes in the words IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

Then his gaze lifts to me, and I'll be honest, I feel as if I'm going to piss myself as I take the full force of that cold, cruel malevolence.

Somehow I manage to hold the stare without my knees buckling or my bladder disgracing me, but I couldn't even start to explain what a relief it is when it drops me and travels to d'Argentine. You hear stories about stuff like demonic possession and I've always thought it was total bullshit, but if someone told me this guy was the devil I fucking well wouldn't laugh.

"Your names?" It's almost a shock that the voice is quiet and cultured, its accent English. I'd be less surprised if he hissed like a cobra.

D'Argentine seems to clear his throat of something. "Sergeant Gordon d'Argentine, General," he raps out. Then he introduces me, and says that I was the man who made the capture.

The gaze comes back to me. I'd give up all the reward money, I'd give up ten years of my life to be able to walk out of here and forget the abyssal gray depths of those eyes fixed on mine. "Honored to serve you, General," I manage to croak out.

Reed. It's General Reed himself. The alpha wolf, the head of the MACOs throughout the Empire. My knees feel like spaghetti.

The dressing-gown has a pocket on the right breast. From it he draws out a credit chip, and hands it to me.

Obviously you can't tell what it represents just by looking at it. But I can almost feel the wealth it promises as I close my fingers shakily around it, with a word of thanks, and slip it into my own pocket.

I expect us to be dismissed, but it doesn't happen. Instead he paces silently around the end of the gurney and walks behind d'Argentine. The faint rustling of the black silk is the only sound in the room apart from the prisoner's breathing, and it stops directly behind me.

Half a second later, his left arm's around my chest, his right hand across my face. His teeth sink into the muscles at the base of my neck, and hurt so badly it feels as if he's savaging me. I cry out in absolute panic. Pack instinct tells me to fall forward, abase myself, accept; if I resist he'll kill me. But his arm is holding me up, preventing me from falling, and the fingers of his hand on my face are crooked inward, ready to claw at my eyes and blind me.

With shock and fear I realize he's intensely aroused. I can feel his erection pressing against me, and if that's what he wants then that's what he will take.

Beside me, d'Argentine wisely doesn't move a muscle. His eyes stare straight ahead. Whatever happens to me, he'll stand there and let it happen.

The teeth withdraw. Languidly a tongue licks at the wounds, strokes up the side of my neck, while a sick, scared excitement starts to burn in the base of my belly as the imprisoning left hand slips downwards. I've never been penetrated before and I know it'll probably hurt a bit, especially at first, but the guys I've seen being humped seem to enjoy it okay; most of them ejaculate, with or without help. Madly I contemplate the blasphemy of splattering that pristine floor with come as General Malcolm Reed works himself off inside me, and wonder if it's an executable offense.

He releases me so suddenly and violently I almost stagger. I'm excited and frightened and I don't know what's going on, but I manage to steady myself against the sergeant's unmoving arm and return to rigid parade rest.

Black silk rustles again. He prowls out from behind me as if he's forgotten my existence. Then he puts one fingertip ever so lightly on the top edge of the immaculate white sheet.

"Leave us," he whispers, smiling down at the man beneath it. The guy moans, wordlessly, as if the sound is pulled out of him by force.

We don't need telling twice. We slam into the salute and do a perfectly drilled turn, and the double door opens to let us out.

The MACOs escort us to the shuttle and see us off the _Sirius._ Nobody speaks.

Back on the shuttle, without a word d'Argentine breaks out an emergency medical kit and applies antiseptic to my neck. It stings, but he doesn't break out any sutures – the bite must be shallow.

I think both of us are shaking. I know I am.

The rest of the troop are waiting aboard the _York. _The news has gone around. The galley staff have gone to town, and there are tables laden with food and drink. When d'Argentine and I walk in, there are whoops and howls; nobody is allowed to eat until the conquering hero has taken his place.

My nerves are still jangling as I walk to the seat of honor. My mind and body are both churning with fear, horror, desire. I don't want to know what happened to the guy on the gurney when we left. I don't want to know what will happen to him at some time in the future, though I'll guess he'll scream for death long before he gets it.

The wounds on my neck are still smarting.

There's a door to one side of the Mess Hall. Del Rey is standing guard over it, a smirk on his face.

We hunted _successfully. _We earned _reward._

I don't see any point in delaying the fun. I glance over to him, and nod.

The food can wait.

The women are driven out into the midst of us. They already know what they're here for; they're naked and mad with fear.

Their screams merely excite us even more – they sound like wounded animals. We pull them down, pin them across the tables, on the floor, wherever they happen to fall. The sex starts, and the killing.

I force a pair of legs apart, and even as I thrust into the delicious yielding softness of the opening between them I remember the pressure of the general's cock against me. The thought of it ramming into me sends a surge of excitement thrilling through me. I already know as I start to fuck her that I won't last long. And nor will she. Beneath her jaw, at the top of her stretched neck, the beating carotid artery beckons irresistibly.

We _hunt. _We _catch. _We _kill._

We are _Pack._


End file.
